Dear Diary, America Is Dying, but Aren’t I Fabulous?

While Americans suffered, Dr. Anthony Fauci was keeping a diary about the person who apparently fascinated him most: himself, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

While Americans died alone in hospitals during the COVID pandemic, buried loved ones without funerals, lost family businesses, depleted life savings, postponed weddings, and watched their children disappear into bedrooms and computer screens Dr. Anthony Fauci was keeping a diary about the person who apparently fascinated him most: himself, Dr. Anthony Fauci. His newly released journals do not read like the reflections of a public servant burdened by national suffering. They read like a personal press archive filled with television appearances, celebrity encounters, flattering profiles, fan merchandise, compliments, invitations, and breathless observations about his expanding fame.

On May 21, 2020 with approximately 94,000 Americans already dead, Fauci recorded a flattering front page profile in The Washington Post. He wrote, “The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable.” He then declared, “It is not hyoperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country.” The misspelling of hyperbole may have been accidental, but the hyperbole was not. The country was grieving and economically immobilized while Fauci privately marveled at the immensity of his own renown.

His fascination with celebrity appeared repeatedly. On March 31, 2020 he wrote, “Complete craziness with this Fauci cult hero stuff.” before preserving an article about Fauci socks, Fauci doughnuts, and Fauci fan art. The next day, he catalogued more tributes: “Continued crazy stuff: Petition to name me ‘Sexiest Man Alive’; video games named after me; Fauci Bobblehead” along with restaurant dishes bearing his name. A man genuinely indifferent to fame does not carefully preserve every bobblehead, flattering headline, fan tribute, and novelty item that crosses his desk.

As restaurant owners contemplated bankruptcy, employees lost their jobs, and patients entered hospitals knowing their families might never see them again, Fauci recorded, “Brad Pitt plays me on Saturday Night Live and thanks me in serious tone after his skit.” He also preserved a “Hilarious video of Billy Crystal playing me in a Trump dungeon prison,” copied a message from Barbra Streisand, and documented attention from other entertainers. Every famous name became another jewel in the crown he was quietly constructing for himself.

His account of an online appearance with Julia Roberts is especially revealing. Fauci wrote that she was “absolutely fabulous” and described how she covered her mouth and exclaimed, “Oh my God. It’s Dr. Fauci, he is here.” Roberts called him her personal hero, prompting Fauci to conclude, “Great experience!!” complete with the preadolescent flourish of double exclamation points. While American children were losing classrooms, birthday parties, graduations, sports, sleepovers, and ordinary time with friends Fauci was thrilled that a Hollywood actress was thrilled to meet him.

In another entry he wrote, “OMG! This is really getting nutsy”, before discussing a report that author Sally Quinn had modeled an erotic male character on him. He returned to the subject days later: “Truly unbelievable. People naming their dogs after me. Sally Quinn saying that I was the erotic lead male in a book.” The story had nothing to do with infection control, hospital capacity, treatments, vaccines, or protecting vulnerable Americans. It mattered because it was about Fauci.

By June 25, 2020, the country had endured months of economic destruction, isolation, and school closures. Fauci nevertheless recorded, “I have been invited to appear on Dancing with the Stars, no thanks!” Even his refusal required documentation. The following day, according to his own entry, approximately 125,000 Americans had died. Families were mourning and businesses were collapsing while Fauci preserved an invitation to a televised dance competition as another testament to his cultural importance.

Fauci monitored his press coverage with equal devotion. On March 22, 2020 he wrote: “Press is going wild with me. Front page in Washington Post yesterday and Op Ed by Maureen Dowd in NY Times today about me and my relationship with the POTUS. Profile by Peter Nicholas on me in The Atlantic.” On April 7, 2020 he noted: “Press still hot and heavy about me. Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me.” He later observed that Trump “seems to be enamored of me even though I am taking the spotlight away from him.” During a once-in-a-century emergency, Fauci was privately keeping score.

He even tracked the merchandise produced in his image. “The ‘swag’ around me is getting really ridiculous,” he wrote. “Geeeez!! I do not like this one bit.” The protest is difficult to take seriously from a man who meticulously catalogued every item bearing his face. His diaries also record television bookings, cartoons, personal praise, and private communications with prominent journalists. He complained when appearances were blocked, tracked which interviews had been approved, and documented allies who promised to restore his access to the airwaves. Media exposure had become a continuing personal concern.

The corporate media enthusiastically helped create Saint Anthony of Washington, D.C. Reporters who should have scrutinized Fauci treated him as an oracle instead installed his halo. His contradictions were excused as evolution, his pronouncements repeated as commandments, and his critics dismissed as dangerous. Networks kept the country in a sustained state of panic while providing Fauci with the attention he privately recorded with such diligence.

The consequences were borne by ordinary Americans. Families were excluded from hospital rooms and denied final conversations with dying relatives. Funerals, weddings, church services, graduations, and family gatherings disappeared. Children lost classrooms, friendships, activities, and milestones. Millions lost jobs, savings, businesses, and financial security. Fauci, meanwhile, retained his salary, pension, prestige, and access to the country’s most powerful people. His restrictions were borne by others while the profiles, awards, and celebrity invitations accrued to him.

The diary also reveals the closeness between Fauci and media personalities who were supposedly covering him independently. When a journalist suggested he had been humiliated after a television interview was canceled, Fauci privately responded, “F you, Peter,” using the full obscenity. After a congressional exchange, he recorded a message from CNN anchor Dana Bash telling him he was “a better man” along with a remark attributed to Wolf Blitzer that nobody would have blamed Fauci for directing another obscenity at a congressman. The same media establishment that elevated him was privately consoling, praising, and protecting him.

Science requires skepticism, but Fauci demanded deference. His declaration that attacks upon him were attacks upon science revealed the narcissism behind the performance. No individual is science, no bureaucrat is infallible, and no number of flattering profiles can transform personal authority into scientific truth.

His entries also sharpen questions concerning the origin of COVID. In January 2020 Fauci wrote, “We know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier”, while maintaining that the virus had jumped from animals to humans elsewhere. Days later, he recorded discussions in which leading scientists considered whether the virus might not have developed naturally. Whatever conclusion one reaches, the diary demonstrates that serious uncertainty existed privately while Americans were publicly told that laboratory origin theories were disreputable fantasies.

By May 2021, Fauci complained that coverage concerning his alleged “flip flopping” on the origin theory had become “out of control”. Once again, his concern centered on press coverage and its effect upon him. A transparent official would have focused on disclosing what the government knew, when it knew it, and why competing theories had been marginalized. Fauci’s instinct was to manage the narrative surrounding Anthony Fauci. That instinct permeates the diaries. Criticism becomes a public relations problem. Restricted television access becomes a grievance. Praise becomes an event worth recording. Celebrity encounters become milestones. Fauci masks, portraits, murals, songs, socks, doughnuts, bobbleheads, and restaurant dishes become artifacts of a burgeoning legend. America endured a pandemic. Anthony Fauci appears to have experienced a coronation.

The famous names continued for years. Julia Roberts sent flowers. Anna Wintour hosted a lengthy video event. Sean Penn, Matt Damon, Steph Curry, Trevor Noah, Lil Wayne, and others entered Fauci’s celebrity orbit. At the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors, Fauci recorded embracing Hunter Biden and their mutual amusement that a photograph would cause the internet to “explode”. Even near the end of the record, Fauci remained absorbed by famous acquaintances and the attention surrounding him. The most damning feature of these diaries is not any single sentence but the cumulative portrait they create. Fauci emerges as a man extraordinarily alert to his fame, intensely interested in his media coverage, delighted by celebrity admiration, and determined to preserve every validation. While Americans surrendered funerals, weddings, worship, education, work, companionship, and financial security, Fauci documented the applause.

Families stood outside hospitals while he recorded flattering profiles. Children sat alone on birthdays while he preserved stories about bobbleheads and fan art. Brides postponed weddings while he noted the invitation from Dancing with the Stars. Businesses collapsed while he marveled that he was the most famous person in America. The public was ordered to surrender normal life while Fauci became increasingly intoxicated by his abnormal prominence. Anthony Fauci wants history to remember the interviews, magazine covers, celebrity friendships, honorary degrees, and institutional tributes. His diary makes that abundantly clear. History should instead remember a federal bureaucrat who enjoyed extraordinary authority, evaded meaningful accountability, and meticulously chronicled his own elevation while the country suffered beneath policies he helped legitimize.

The American people do not owe Fauci another award, glowing documentary, or reverential profile. They are owed the truth about what officials knew, the mistakes they made, the dissent they suppressed, and the damage their policies inflicted. They are also owed a public health system led by people who understand that service is not celebrity, authority is not infallibility, and a nation’s suffering is not the backdrop for one bureaucrat’s diary of self adoration.